Flu, more flu and even more flu

We eventually came down to Bér on Friday last week, but not so much due to Roy's flu, but mine. On the same day that I posted last week, I started feeling really bad in the afternoon. Every joint and muscle in my body hurt, I felt sick, I had a headache, but the worst was the coughing. I had two bouts of Covid, and the two together wasn't as bad as this flu. In fact, it may have been a new strain of Covid, as we will never know, because there is not only no testing by the Health  Service any more, but you cannot even buy a test kit for money at the pharmacy. Typical Orbán regime nonsense: "if we do not test, we will not have to admit having an epidemic". They have been doing this for years now, so we got used to it. Meaghan gave me several boxes of 5 tests, which the Canadian health service was handing out free, but all of those are now out of date, so I didn't bother.

The future of hiking, in the Börzsöny on April 13th 2024

I was still feeling awful, but we had to return to Bér, due to the guests we were expecting, as mentioned in last week's post. Eventually, they stayed three nights, instead of one, and today we are expecting Dani's family to stay and while they are only supposed to stay for one night, who knows? Dani and Lili are very flexible people, and in a way I am glad that we were here, (due to my illness), at least we could accommodate them this week. The extremely painful coughing lasted 5 days, which was hell. By today, I am almost free of coughing, except first thing in the morning, when I still have to cough up the gunge that collected on my lungs overnight.

Remnant of the rails in the Black Valley

Another really irritating fact was that this week the weather has been, and still is, gorgeous. Mild, still with absolutely no wind and bright sunshine most days. I am always missing good weather by being ill, and this autumn is no different. We postponed the Zala geocaching trip by two weeks, so now it will start on 11th November. I bet you, the weather by then would have turned wet, cold and windy. I sort of knew somehow that we would not be able to go this week, so I only started writing the cache list a couple of days ago. This flu, which I am now absolutely convinced is a Covid variant, having heard from a friend that he also had it and was convinced it was, gave me brain fog. Writing the list took me, so far, at least twice the normal time it usually does.

Lovely Börzsöny meadow on April 20th 2024

The one advantage of spending most my time in bed is that I could catch up with some paperwork. A couple of months ago the main admin person of one FB group where I was the moderator, has given up her position. It was a little bit rude that she didn't talk to me about it, just used the system to ask me if I were to take it on. I didn't want the group to die, so I said yes. Now, I had a closer look and changed some photos, and rules and hopefully it will not give me too much work.

Talking of work, I have also spent a few days uploading hiking photos onto another FB group, which I have sort of forgotten about. The one where I am now the admin concerns the Cserhát, the range of hills where we live.  The other one is a group concerning the next range of hills, the Börzsöny, just West of us. As it happens, all three geocaching hikes I have organised this year, took place in the Börzsöny, so I looked for the photos and uploaded three separate albums. They are getting lots of likes and a few comments. I wish I could encourage more people to do the same in the Cserhát group, they are not as enthusiastic about posting as the members of the other one.

Up to the ridge at the latest hike on 12th October

I'm still doing a bit of Alex's financial paperwork by filing his expenses in date order in an Excel file, and that is up to date now as well. My e-mails are also not very easy to keep up to date, but I am almost there now. Also, my usual US procedurals have restarted again, (a full month later than normal), but I have been watching those as well. I also postponed the hygienist by a week, hoping for a less coughing and more normal self by mid-November.

View from the ridge on 12th October 2024

 

To cheer myself up, I also started planning caching activity in 2025 already, and the first hike's location and route is as good as planned. The main reason for choosing the location, was that a new young guy, a fellow cacher, has offered his help. He lives nearby and might help me with the logistics. It is a part of the country where I haven't been for a very long time, so I am already looking forward to it.

Raven's Cliff in the Börzsöny on 12th October 2024

So, that's all for now - I do hope that I will be over the flu, or whatever else this is, by the time I post again. 

PS: As both of us having the flu, obviously, didn't produce any photographs, I took these here from the photo albums of the three major geocaching hikes this year, all three of them in the Börzsöny.